


V-Day

by ghostl0rd (orphan_account)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Awkward Romance, Brotherly Bonding, Cheesy, Fireworks, Fluff, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Sensuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-18 11:17:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13098978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ghostl0rd
Summary: He'd never planned that he'd live to see life after the war; he'd actually planned ondying.But now here he was, very much alive and very obviously plan-less.Alternate Reality where Lucis wins the war. Nyx/Pelna.





	V-Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aosc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aosc/gifts).



> The prompt, summarised: basically an unsuave!Nyx, these two finally taking a break from the war, dockside romance and fireworks and alllll the nice things :D
> 
> Please enjoy my half of our blood sacrifice to keep this submarine going eheheeh XD
> 
> Happy Holidays!!! 
> 
> Special thanks to all the lovely enablers out there ~~you know who you are~~
> 
> *HUGS*
> 
> Music Inspiration:  
> Strong -- London Grammar  
> This Girl (Kungs vs Cooking on 3 Burners) -- Kungs

Nyx had been a glaive long enough that his timetable might as well have been hardwired into his DNA, so he wasn't at all surprised that he was up at 5AM on his first morning off since the armistice was signed. What did surprise him was the confident knock on his door just as he'd finished lacing up for his morning run. He didn't immediately move to answer because he thought he’d heard wrong: his friendship circle didn't do house calls. They spent enough time together in the van and on the field and at Yama's—with the odd poker night at Luche's afterwards—that any more would have suggested an unhealthy co-dependency. The only visit Nyx did count on therefore, was the building super doing her usual monthly inspections, and that had been two nights ago, and no matter how pleasant their conversations were, he was still a name and number to be checked off a register at the end of the day. He figured the only rational explanation left was that Mrs Kisaragi’s cat had gotten out again, and she loved her Cait Sith enough to risk getting murdered by her neighbours at such an obscene hour.

"Morning," greeted Pelna cheerfully when the door opened. He was bent forward and touching his toes; head brushing against his knees, hands braced behind his ankles.

Thing was; up until that point Nyx had been mentally rehearsing the conversation he usually had with his frantic ninety-year old neighbour--and was therefore in no way prepared to school himself into the 'cool dude who drops one liners' persona he usually presented in front of the rest of the glaive. 

So naturally he stood with his jaw half-open, mind drawing a complete blank.  

The second thing was; Nyx had a thing for tattoos and he had a _Thing_ \--he was too wary of rejection to call it anything else--for Pelna, and it just so happened, _it just so happened_ , that Pelna had a sick set of ink himself. Nyx thought he'd recovered from when that revelation was made months ago; 'recovered' being loosely defined as being able to mostly focus and function during a mission without getting side-tracked by the mental image of a half-naked Pelna at Poker Night 221, but apparently.

 _Apparently_ , that assumption had been premature, and worse, Pelna wasn’t even half-naked this time. He had on a sleeveless hoodie that exposed the artwork on his arms, and Nyx could feel himself relapsing with every second spent tracing over the wings spread over the backs of them. Astrals, he hadn't even started running and already his pulse had picked up; throat drying up faster than a snowflake in a Leiden summer; the only ' _running'_ of any kind belonging to his thoughts sprinting to less than wholesome places when his brain felt the need to hint at his teammate's flexibility.

“Um. _Hi_.” Nyx coughed, as if doing so would help un-stall the cogs of his brain.

Pelna snapped bolt upright with little warning at the sound of his voice before his expression turned sheepish and he closed his eyes, groaning.

“Something on my face, bud?” Nyx joked.

“Nothing, just--" Pelna heaved a sigh. “Crowe being _Crowe_. She wanted to go running this morning and texted her ‘address’ so I could pick her up on the way. I _thought_ it was too good to be true since we all know she doesn’t get up unless there’s booze or a payslip waiting on the other end, but…”

“Yeah that should have been your first clue.” Nyx agreed. He swallowed the disappointment of being the second option and forced a smile while Pelna relayed their serial prankster a string of middle finger and shit emojis from his cell phone. A few seconds later there was a beep, and Pelna snorted, holding it up for Nyx to see.

**[   k.                   ]**

“She’ll get hers.” Pelna declared. He tucked his phone into the fitness band around his arm and grinned. “Since you’re up...last one to the citadel buys breakfast? I know a place that makes the best cronuts.”

“You’re on."

Pelna poked him while they started down the hallway for the lift.

“Getting a little soft there. I guess even _heroes_ get old…”

Nyx scoffed and pulled him into a headlock.

  
. . .

  
Prior to the armistice signing, there had been an announcement by King Regis via televised press conference that the following week would be a Public Holiday, so preparations by the Insomnia City Council were in full swing while Nyx and Pelna made their way toward the citadel. Everywhere they looked there was a buzz of activity: polo-clad supervisors armed with clipboards, shouting orders through megaphones to outside contractors in trucks carrying in disassembled parts of The Six (they would be installed on the sides of buildings leading up to the palace); lights being strung from street pole to street pole, balloon arches that the Crownsguard and Kingsglaive would march through during the victory parade. A thought, unbidden, hit Nyx as he watched one person hold a ladder steady for a colleague, slowing him to an eventual halt.

Pelna did a U-turn a few seconds later and jogged back.

"Never figured you to get sentimental over balloons," he teased, stopping in front of Nyx.

Nyx shrugged, running a hand through his hair. "Sorry it just...it really is over after this, isn't it. No more fighting, no more _isolation_..."

"...no more gods awful meal preps and calorie counting, no more _me_ roasting _you_ on the comms, no more worrying about your self-sacrificing ass. Yeah, that _definitely_ sounds like the life," Pelna teased, draping an arm over his shoulder.

"Excuse you, but calorie counting is an essential tenet of the glaive experience," Nyx replied pompously, ignoring the growing sinking feeling in his stomach.

Pelna sighed, then grabbed Nyx by the arms, shaking him just a little, as if it would help shake off this sudden bout of melancholy. He had a grin on his face that was filled with indescribable happiness, which normally would have been infectious, but all Nyx could focus on were the lines crinkling at the edges of Pel's eyes. Astrals, they'd been so young when they joined. 

 _No,_ too _young._

"This is the future you wanted, hero," Pelna said. "The _least_ you could do is _pretend_ you're happy to see it?"

He flicked Nyx in the forehead and took off. A few seconds later Nyx followed with a renewed burst of energy that he convinced himself was driven by an innate desire to win.   

And not the fear of watching life pull his friend into a future that didn't include him.

  
. . .

  
True to Pelna’s word, the cronuts would live up to expectation: cream cheese centres just the perfect amount of sweet without overpowering the pastry. True to Nyx’s word Pelna lost, but by a narrow enough margin that Nyx insisted on paying, and then wound up _not_ paying as the café too had been swept up in armistice celebrations. The chalkboard sign at the entrance announced that everything was on the house and that customers were free to tip the workers if they wanted.

Pelna, still as honorable as ever, tried to--very slyly-- leave a tip equating the cost of the meal and a little extra on top, compelling Nyx, in a fit of pride, to physically hold the jar out of his reach until an elderly man smacked Pelna upside the back of his head with a roll of newspaper for holding up the line. (He also smacked Nyx, but Nyx barely felt it because the old timer apparently knew Pelna, threatening that a ‘Johannes’ would ‘hear about this’.) Pelna was uncharacteristically flustered, the tips of his ears turning a dark red as they pushed their way through the growing crowd to a table outside, amid scattered applause by those who had been standing behind the old man. Nyx was too intrigued to be anything remotely near mortified, leaning forward in his seat in interest.

“So _Johannes_...” he said. It just didn't add up: Pel was the type of person who _liked_ old people, and _old people_ liked in turn, and didn’t typically get angry at, or go round swatting with their copy of the Insomnia Herald.  

Pelna grumbled from where he had his face buried in his arms on the table.

"If it makes you feel better he's already left." Nyx added.

Pelna chanced a peak back into the cafe warily at those words, relaxing only once he'd scanned every table and had verified for himself. He unstrapped his armband and set it on the table, rubbing his bicep to get the circulation flowing again.

There was no way around it, Nyx decided. No point of carrying the 'hero' moniker if he didn't confront this thing head on.

"Is Johannes someone you're seeing?" 

"What? No he's--" Pelna paused, as if properly processing Nyx's question and looked at him oddly. "You know, it's _really_ interesting that that's the first place your mind went to."

Crap.

Nyx shrugged it off, fiddling with the salt and sugar packets between them. "Everyone's been wondering Pel; you're kind of solitary." 

"Says the guy who doesn't wait for backup," Pelna retorted with a laugh.

One of the waitresses arrived with their orders while Nyx tried to string together a comeback.

"There we go: two caramel lattes, two big breakfasts, and I will be back with the cronuts in a bit," said the girl with a friendly smile before disappearing.

"Alright, I deserved that," Nyx conceded eventually, watching her go.

"Not to mention the fact that I'd never date anyone I'd be _afraid_ of. There's enough scary shit in our job description as it is." Pelna muttered into his cup, taking a sip.

"Oh, I don't know, I think I could be into that." Nyx winked. Pelna choked and kicked him under the table.

Nyx snickered and made a start on his eggs.

"Johannes is family. Kind of. He took me in after uh, _you know_." 

"Does he live in the city?"

Pelna smiled through a mouthful of bacon and eggs at their waitress when she appeared to set down their cronuts and took away their table number. He swallowed, shaking his head.

"Leide. He visited me once but had a shitty time of it; said that the light pollution was the reason people had no appreciation of the stars. _Astronomers_." Pelna added with a chuckle. "I'm visiting him as soon as the Victory Ball's done."

Nyx perked up at that.  "You going?"

" _Dude_. It's a party _especially for_ us and  there's  food and booze that  _I_  don't have to pay for for once.   Of  _course I'm going_." 

"And the hits just keep on coming," Nyx muttered, crunching noisily into a piece of toast.

 

. . . 

 

They walked shoulder to shoulder after that (well  _almost_ , Nyx had a few inches on the guy, easily) , to the intersection where their neighbourhoods crossed; Pelna explaining that the tattoo on his back was The High Seraph: a lesser known astral that was the patron astral of Pelna's village; Nyx in turn explaining that the lines on his body didn't really actually mean anything, just that he never could make up his mind or commit to a design which drove his usual artist _batshit_. 

"She'd love to meet you, though." Nyx mused as they reached the lights. "Then while she's in a good mood you can get me a discount.  Actually, yeah. I'll take you there next week. Two-man con, you and me... Pel?" He asked, noticing that his friend had tensed for some inexplicable reason, staring a little to hard into the sidewalk. "Hey--"

Pelna shifted just out reach, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. 

"Uh, yeah, no that sounds fun."

"Pel--"

"Um.  I have some calls to make. I'll see you later."

He gave a wave and was gone, jogging across the street before Nyx could get a word in edgewise. Nyx felt a knot forming in his throat and inhaled a shaky breath. 

That...

...that felt a lot like rejection.

 

. . .

  
The morning of the parade, Nyx was surprised to find Crowe sitting on the front steps leading up to his apartment.  He started to wonder if he had actually liked this new reality where people visited him. Every time it happened it was almost as if people were saying goodbye. The night before it had been Tredd and Sonitus (a resigned Axel in the background) waving a box of Coronas under his nose, like they were a ticket in, and the afternoon before that, Libertus had dragged him out to Galdin to go fishing.  He'd enjoyed both, but couldn't shake the feeling that he was somehow being left behind, in the end. 

Crowe's eyes were red-rimmed as she looked up at him. She blew her nose into the handkerchief Nyx gave her.

"Thanks."

"So is it hayfever, or did you get fired?" asked Nyx as he sat down beside her. Crowe laughed in spite of herself and hit him. 

" _Shut up_."

"What's the plan for the Indomitable Crowe Altius?"

" _She_ plans to get drunk."

"Thought that was a given, but okay..."

Crowe shoved him.

 _There's the Crowe I know,_ Nyx thought. If she couldn't hold it together then where did that leave him?

Crowe leaned forward, bracing her forearms on her thighs. She let out a sigh, reaching over to squeeze Nyx's arm.

"You're useless, you know that right?"

"You came all this way to insult me?"

Crowe bumped her shoulder against his.

"Pel's not coming back when he leaves for Leide," she said quietly, idly fiddling with the ruby on her chest. 

Nyx blinked a few times, trying to process that. 

"So, yeah. I'm getting drunk. Astrals, I practically dropped him in your lap and you," she poked Nyx in the chest, " _you,_ did _nothing_ with that.  _Useless_!"

  
. . .

  
Crowe kept her arm linked around Pelna's the entire parade, unwilling to let him out of sight even when they were approached by random members of the press for a sound bite so Nyx missed that chance to talk. If he was being very honest however, maybe it was a good thing.

It was surreal to think that his life had simultaneously ended and started; one moment he was at war, the next he _wasn't_ , all within the span of a week. He'd never planned that he'd live to see life after the war; he'd actually planned on _dying_.  But now here he was, very much alive and very obviously plan- _less_.

He spent the rest of the days leading up to the victory ball on auto-pilot as a result and it took Libertus breaking away from where he'd been chatting up the head caterer to pull him by the ear for Nyx to hit Pause on the Greatest Hits album his brain had been playing.

"People started out the night asking for your number and now they're asking if you're okay." Libertus said, looking faintly amused.

He took Nyx's empty glass and swapped it for a full one as a server passed.

"Thanks. What'd you tell them?"

Libertus shrugged. "Told 'em the love of your life died."

" _Why_ would you say that?"

Libertus rubbed at his eye and yawned. "'S true innit? No more war; no more _purpose_ for Nyx Ulric."

" _Wow,_ Lib.  Tell me how you really feel."

" _I just did_." Libertus turned to leave, pausing as if remembering. "Oh, and Crowe ditched just twenty minutes ago but she texted to tell you you'd would 'enjoy the fireworks better from the waterfront'.  Now, as a straight bloke I _gotta know_ : is that a euphemism or-- _aaaand_ he's gone," he muttered, at the Nyx-shaped outline of crystal dust twinkling in the air beside him; the untouched Tenebraen white swirling in the flute glass on the table nearby.  

  
. . .

 

Pelna choked mid-sip on his beer when Nyx materialized with a casual "fancy meeting you here" and swatted at Nyx (and missed) when he eventually recovered from the fifteen-second-long coughing fit. Nyx helped himself to a bottle from the box beside his feet and twisted it open.

"Guess some traditions can't be broken."

"Liberated that from the kitchens on my way out. So-"

Pelna was cut off as the very first set of fireworks shot into the sky, exploding against the inky black canvas in brilliant bursts of purple.  

Nyx reached forward and clinked his bottle against Pelna's.

"Happy V-Day. What were you going to say?"

"Hmm?"

"Before the fireworks. You looked like you were going to say something."

"Oh, nothing, I was just going to ask if you really are this useless," Pelna shrugged, and Nyx spat out his beer, coughing and sputtering.

" _What_?"

Pelna said nothing, simply sculled the rest of his beer without breaking eye contact before setting it back onto the ground.  Then he started walking. 

Oh.

_Ohh..._

Nyx watched him go, heart hammering in his chest.

"But you're leaving,"

"But I'm here _now_." Pelna pointed out, sounding somewhat irritated.  "And it's not like I'm saying you can't come with--"

Nyx took a step.

The rest that followed was in a blur of crystal dust all across the citadel, culminating with Pelna backing him up against the side of a car, tongue sliding against his, fingers threaded tightly in Nyx's hair. Nyx was breathless as they broke away for air, turned way, _way_ on; a little bemused, and _a lot_  jealous.

"Where'd you learn to--I'm not complaining, just-- _shit_ dude.  What-what uh...else have you been-- _Shiva on a half-shell, don't stop doing that_." 

(Nyx had forgotten what they were talking about, on account of Pelna's fingers idly caressing the back of his neck and into his hair.)

Pelna sighed.  "I'm _solitary_ , not dead." He nodded curtly at the occupants of the car over Nyx's shoulder. "Your Majesty. Your Highness."

"- _Oh...fuck me_." Nyx groaned, falling forward slightly to bury his face in the space between Pelna's neck and shoulder.

"It's on the to-do list," Pelna murmured, just low enough that only he could hear. Nyx's hands tightened where they sat on Pelna's hips.  Six, but he smelled _good_. 

" _Titan's Ass_." An incredulous Cor at the steering wheel went, while Regis chided him in the background. "Is that you Ulric?"

Okay, great, so the Crownsguard were going to hear about this tomorrow as well.  Nyx gave a wave without turning. 

"Leonis, how's it uh...how's--" 

"You tell me." said Cor, chuckling.

" _Please_ don't," said Noctis.

" _Well,_ " Regis cleared his throat, mouth twitching in suppressed laughter. "Tonight has certainly gotten _me_ _tongue-tied_ \--"

" _Dad!_ " 

Regis disguised a laugh with a cough and waved them away.

"As you were."

"Yes sire. Thank you sire--"

" _Please_ go away now," Noctis groaned.

 

. . . 

 

Pelna was laughing as they half-warped, half-ran, presumably to a dark alley to continue making out undisturbed, and it occurred to Nyx, _finally_ , when he was eventually spread out on the floor of his apartment, watching Pel kiss a line down his chest, that maybe, _just maybe,_  some futures should be set in stone.

(Because he kind of liked where this one was heading.)


End file.
